Posts Tagged With: trekamerica

The more I think about it, the more I want to go but now I am not sure when would be the best time for me? Should I go in Feb or Nov next year? I have just received the Footprint Guidebook from Amazon and I think I will ponder on that, maybe check for when the weather is best but it’s the Caribbean so Feb or Nov should both be ok right?

Today I have had a fairly dull day at work. It’s Friday, it was sunny out there but cold and dead in the office and I had no back log work to clear…so I started to think of where I wanted to go on holiday next.

I am very tempted by Costa Rica…it seems to be the new destination of choice as I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she said she had been talking about this destination with her boyfriend.

My thing is that I want to go somewhere exotic where I can mix physical activities with a bit farniente and be part of a group even though I am travelling by myself. I know it would be probably cheaper for me to organise my own trip and pick and choose on site what to do but I can’t be ask to deal with the stress of picking out things to do. If I was travelling with a friend then it would be different but unfortunately – here is that word again – I don’t have any travel buddies. My last holiday as you will know if you have followed my ramblings, was in the US through a company called Trekamerica and I really, really enjoyed it (I think I might even have enjoyed it more if I had planned it better on my side). They are very good at making independent travellers tours. Some of the guys in my tour were travelling together but most were on their own and you just get paired for the hotel which makes it cheaper as you don’t have to pay a single supplement.

They do a Costa Rican holiday – actually they do 2: the reefs and jungle tour and the Surf and Volcanoes one. Both look amazing and would take about 10 days, which is I think the max I would be able to take in one go with work. Now the thing is I am wondering, should I then think about this one for next say September/Oct/Nov or squeeze it in for Feb/Mar as I will have carried forward 4 days from this year holiday count which I will need to take before the end of March.

I know that I need to keep some time for Xmas as the company shuts down at Xmas and also some time to catch with my girlfriends as we are planning a reunion in Brittany.

I have also decided that as I will turn 40 in 2014 (I know brrr..!!!) I want to treat myself to an awesome holiday and start saving for it and maybe get people to sponsor some of it (instead of buying me silly presents) and as I have always wanted to go to Hawaii, I think it would be perfect. I have always said that Hawaii was were I wanted my honeymoon…but I don’t think I’ll ever get one so why wait?

The issue I am having is finding the appropriate resources for that one. I don’t want to be stuck in one place, but Hawaii is not particularly a destination for adventurers…lots of couples and honeymooners and I worry that it might be annoying.

I want to learn how to surf, so maybe I should choose the Surf and Volcanoes trip to Costa Rica for next year, as there is some surfing lesson possible there, so I would be ready for Hawaii?

There are so many places in the world I still want to see and it is annoying to have to do it alone…and then again, what if I buy a flat next year? Will have I have enough money left to do a cool holiday per year?

It was sad to say goodbye to a few people on the night before and on 4th I had to goodbye to my little gang…Heather, Melissa and Steph all left late afternoon. I had originally decided to go back to Santa Monica to hang out and see the fireworks but after seeing how long it took yesterday to get from there to the Hacienda, I gave up on the idea.

Achim was staying until the 9th but moving hotels. He was going to a hostel in Santa Monica. As I was due to leave early on the 5th, he kindly agreed to go watch the fireworks from El Segundo (we asked the hotel if there was going to be some around) and then make his way back to his hostel instead of me trekking the 2 hours back.

We spent part of the day by the hotel pool but the fog hadn’t lifted and we were literally shivering after we enjoyed the really hot jacuzzi. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel patio, chatting away and reminiscing some of the funniest moments. You could tell that everyone was slowly losing his sparkle from having to say goodbye. Finally the time came and it was just me and Achim left. We decided to go explore where the fireworks was going to be to see what wee needed to plan for.

People were already getting ready and marking their spot in the street with deck chairs and blankets. The whole area had been cordoned off so there was no traffic.

The fog had finally lifted by late afternoon so it was warming up.

The fireworks were going to be launched from a baseball stadium which had been all closed off and you could buy a ticket for $3 and get a seat in the arena and enjoy the pre-fireworks concert. We decided not to.

We walked back towards the hotel to go get some supplies for an impromptu picnic. Originally we had thought of going to dinner in one of the restaurant and then wander back for the fireworks but seeing that a lot of people were already claiming space all around, we decided it would be safer to buy some food and drinks and lay our towels out and wait for the big bang… It took a while for the sun to set and we were so close to the airport that we think we saw Steph’s plane take off…

I am sure that the fireworks would have been nicer on Santa Monica but as it stand it wasn’t too bad…

I tried to take a few pics with my Nikon Coolpix but not easy without a tripod…

We left just before it ended as Achim wanted to be the mass exodus so he could catch the shuttle bus back to the airport, where he could catch another shuttle bus to get to Santa Monica…it took him about 2hours even at that time of the night… I am glad I didn’t have to do.

I had been lucky to have been alone in my room the night before so I was a little surprise to find that I had a room mate on my way back. She was also returning from a trek. We chatted briefly and then I turned off as I wanted to be at the airport in plenty of time…you know me, I am a nervous traveller 🙂

My flight was at 11am and I got there for 8.30am so I had plenty of time to kill. Did a little last minute shopping. I had started to develop the cold that had gone around the bus in the last week of our tour so I bought some medicine to help. I also had my first McDonald…somehow, throughout the journey I had managed to avoid it…not really out of choice as I like to try out McD in the countries I visit as they always have a “local” speciality. In India I had a McMaharaja which is a chicken curry burger, in Thailand I had a McThai…which is also chicken curry type but did taste different…and in LAX I had a breakfast burrito…which is not something you get in Europe for sure!

My flight back was dreadful. My cold developed full tilt and I think I got myself a fever at some point. I couldn’t sleep despite my earplugs and eye mask because I felt hot and cold all night and I couldn’t breathe with my mouth closed and I can’t really sleep with my mouth open. I watch a couple movies but I didn’t want to spend the night doing that…I was really happy to land on Friday morning and my commute back home was long…I wasn’t supposed to go to bed on arrival so I could control the jet lag but between the sleepless flight and the fact that I felt absolutely dreadful, I didn’t last very long….long enough to take a well deserved shower and to call my Nan to reassure her that I was a live if not well…

I had 3 days to recover from the jetlag before I was due to start at my new job…unfortunately for me, jetlag decided to kick the night before my first day and stayed with me for a few more nights…of course it did.

Taking stock…

My big highlights were:

San Diego

The Grand Canyon – of course

Yosemite – for the accomplishment of the hike

Baseball game and Alcatraz in San Francisco

Santa Barbara – the whole town actually, it felt like a place I could live in.

The people… I was worried about the American people…they can have a bad reputation for being obnoxious, loud and little too much overly Christian….throughout the trip I discovered how nice and friendly they can be, I was impressed by the customer service everywhere we went (regardless of tipping convention) and I didn’t get too much Christianity shoved back at me.

My fellow travellers…we had an amazing group and I am hoping to stay in touch with a few. We are already talking about when we see each other next and I believe the first reunion is going to be in Zurich (Steph’s haunt) to go skiing. Then, it should be Aberdeen…

And here’s for the memories

More Burt Reynolds action

The girls

With the top boys…

LAX in Vegas

Limo action in Vegas with Lisa and El

With the lovely Heather…

I can’t wait to go back out there…The country lived up to my expectations and the people surpassed them…Now I want to see it all…I want to go to New York, I want to see Miami, New Orleans, go to Boston and see Washington and I also want to see Canada…. Until next time…

We headed out to town for a day at the beach. We took the bus right across from our motel and within 15 mins we were in State St which is the main shopping street. From the first look I liked Santa Barbara’s Mexican’s influence. All the shop fronts are the same, hacienda style. It’s warm, it’s sunny and it’s clean. The town centre is quite small and yet it has all the shops, cafes, restaurants and bars that you might want. There are a couple of art house cinemas and I think even a theatre. When in the town centre you are about 15 mins walk from the beach front but if you don’t fancy walking, you can take a cute little shuttle train for 80 cents.

Bare feet are dangerous…!

SUP: Stand Up Paddling…is the top sport around there…

A cool van…

After a walk along the pier and the beach front (looking for the jet ski rental) we ended going to the beach for a bit of swim and sunbathe. We didn’t find the shop…

The marina

We had lunch at the beach cafe, which actually was rather nice. It was a nice day of doing not much…On the way back, I did a bit of souvenir shopping and bought a new pair of earphones from the drugstore as mine had broken.

We went back to the motel to get showered and headed back out for dinner.

We ate at a little Italian restaurant (the usual group…Steph, Heather, Melissa, Achim and I) and then went looking for a place to have a drink….

We settled for a place called the Sand Bar which had outside fires and looked funky.

They had really nice cocktails…I enjoyed a few Pina Coladas…

Then we discovered that they turned into a club after a certain time…which suited us very well and we ended up staying for a bit of a boogie…

Left to right: Achim, Heather, Melissa, Steph and a very tanned Me

The happy gang after a good night drinking cocktails (for the girls) and dancing…

So we left San Francisco and headed towards the most beautiful (and long) drive we had so far…Pacific Highway 101 is famous for its vistas…You drive along the ocean and it does live up to the hype. But first we stopped to see the famous painted houses of SF. They were the ones where the TV series Full House was supposed to be shot.

We missed out on seeing them the day before because of the delay with the Alcatraz trip and some of the girls really wanted to see them.

“Full House” houses

As you can see the day was foggy and grey. Apparently it’s often the case in the morning in SF. We did drive through pretty neighbourhoods to get out of town and it gave me back a little liking for the city…

There are lots of little houses like that around in that part of town and I wouldn’t mind one of those.

PCH 101 View – Oh my!

We had lunch there. It was cute. You have to walk through an art shop on the ground to get to the restaurant on the first floor. The menu was a little restricted and not cheap…but it’s pretty much the only place you can eat for a long way.

Saying that, I had a good breakfast so wasn’t really hungry so only bought a fruit salad.

After lunch we stopped at a view point. It’s a historical area where a famous rich woman used to have a house…

This was one of the views that woman had from her house…I could live with that…

A little birdie…

Our next stop was to watch the sea lions sunbathe….

We arrived in Santa Barbara in late afternoon. We were staying at the Oasis Motel about 15 mins bus ride from town centre. And of course it had a pool so as soon as we were settle in our rooms, we headed out for a swim. It had been a long drive and everybody needed to relax and cool down.

Mel had organised dinner in town at an American dinner called Joe’s Cafe. I decided to play a little more Girls vs Food by ordering their French double dip sandwich…which by the way has nothing French about it as we don’t do that at all in France.

Girl vs Food: Beef double dip sandwich. It was good but definitely was goood!This is supposed to be a French style sandwich…I can tell you that I have never had one in France and grew up there!

We didn’t hang out in town for long after dinner..didn’t even go for drinks.

So…this was our final day in San Francisco and it helped me changed my mind about the city.

So far, I had been underwhelmed with the city. I had enjoyed the cable car ride and the baseball game but that was pretty much it. The city itself hadn’t wowed me as I expected…This was about to change.

So the planning for the day was: people with tickets to Alcatraz were going there in the morning and those without were staying with Mel for a nice breakfast and a drive around the city. We were all due to meet back at 11.30am to then go to Ashbury Heights (the hippy quarter) and then the Golden Gate bridge…

First hitch, our tickets included a trip to Angel Island and unfortunately, this was the first stop so we weren’t due to get to Alcatraz until noon. Ooops… Rachel left a message to Mel and we set out to enjoy our day…and that we did. I absolutely loved both island..it was beautiful and interesting at the same time.

The boat ride was really nice. A bit windy and chilly but sunny enough that it was enjoyable and we got to see San Francisco Bay under a beautiful light

San Francisco harbour

Windswept…and again, someone who doesn’t know how to use my DSLR…I should have kept those shots with my compact. Then again, being blurred means you can see all the imperfections 🙂

Alcatraz Island – at this stage, we were just passing through…

Bay Bridge

Arriving at Angel Island

Angel Island is a State Park and is known as the “Ellis Island of the West” as it housed the Immigration Quarantine park for a long time. It also was a military base for a while and still has some of the civil war barracks and hospital.

We spent 2 hours there, going around the park on the mini train.

It has beautiful views and there is a spot there where you are supposed to have the best view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge…that is if the fog is kind enough to lift…unfortunately for us, it didn’t and we didn’t see anything.

Old civil war time hospital. One of the oldest construction still standing on the island

Period dressed reanactment

The Golden Gate Bridge…in the fog

Old baracks

Immigration triage

Most of the Far Eastern world immigrated through this point but also some of Europe. Although it was mostly Chinese and they were detained sometimes for months, like prisoners. Families were separated. There were some famous poems which were engraved on the wooden walls.

Being on the clock, we didn’t get to go inside any of the building. This is a shot of the free postcard you get with your ticket. It’s an image of one of those poems.

We didn’t get much time to eat as we were due back on the boat to finally get to Alcatraz.

I had been looking forward to this part. Again, hugely influenced by famous movies like Escape from Alcatraz and The Rock.

I also discovered that Alcatraz wasn’t always a prison…

The Rock

Before being a federal penitentiary, Alcatraz was of course a military base, then later on a military prison.

After the prison closed, it became the centre for Indian rights activisms.

I didn’t take many pictures inside…it felt a little disrespectful somehow and I was just so fascinated by the audio commentary. If you go there, do not hesitate to do it. The sound effects are amazing and you feel like you are living it. It is a little creepy even. Unfortunately we had to skip through a lot of the parts as time was running out and we wanted to get the first boat out. We were already way out of schedule to meet up with the others on the mainland. On the way out, we passed through the gift shop where one of the former prisoners there was doing a book signing. I didn’t buy the book as I knew I wouldn’t read it but it was amazing to see someone who had lived through this place, especially after having heard of the dreadful conditions there and having seen the size of the cells…Definitely not the luxury some prisons offer these days…there were no human rights activists for them back then…

Trying to meet up with the others once we were back at Pier 33 was a lot harder than expected. Rachel was liaising with Mel and it wasn’t going well as she wouldn’t tell us where our next step was and insisted that meet up with them at the Golden Gate Bridge even though chances are we wouldn’t have time to walk it and the bridge was in the fog so much that we wouldn’t see much. We took our time though walking between Pier 33 and Pier 39 as Lisa wanted to go to a souvenirs shop she had seen the day before and didn’t think we would have time after we met up with the others…then we struggled to actually find cabs to get to the bridge…we finally got there, to see that the bridge was invisible and we definitely didn’t have to walk it…we got in the van and returned to Pier 39! We were a little annoyed that we had to pay for cab fares when we could all have met back there without having to rush back or if she had told us we were going to go there after, we would have wasted time before and had met back with her earlier…this wasn’t good planning at all.

This is what we got to see of the Golden Gate Bridge…

Walking around Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf gave me back the excitement for the city though…

We had some free time on Fisherman’s Wharf until 6pm. Some people went into the Hard Rock Cafe…it was too busy for me and I wanted to walk around and do a bit of souvenirs shopping. Achim came with me… Later on, we were all due to meet up at Pier 20 to go on a catamaran cruise…I wasn’t too keen as I tend to be sea sick on small boats.

Amazing sea lions chilling by the pier

I shouldn’t have been worried by the cruise…it was one of the best nights we had…there was snacks served and we had all 3 drinks tokens. We shared the ride a other groups and I had a jolly time and thanks to my little acupressure bands, I didn’t get sick at all!

It was misty, windy and chilly on the boat, but luckily they had spare parkas for everyone! I regretted coming in my flip flops though as my tootsies got quite cold!

Once out of the bay though, the weather improved and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

Mr Piggy enjoying the ride…

Left to right: Steph, Heather, The Finisher, Rachel, Tash, Melissa and James

There was another trek group with us and their tour guide decided it would be fun to wrestle on the net, pitching his group against ours, starting by a match between him and Mel…I have to admit, this was the funniest thing ever…I filmed it and it is a shame I can’t really add it here!

We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, still in the fog, and the weather turn called again.

Fog City Diner on Battery Street

After the cruise we went for dinner at a posh diner called Fog City Diner

The decor was quite cool and the food was really nice…It was a perfect end to what turned out to be nearly a perfect day…

Girl vs Food: Green Thai Mussels….it was creamy and had a strong kick to it but quite delicious. I enjoyed that very much and the mussels were ginormous!

Now San Francisco was the leg of the trip I was waiting for the most. Everyone I know who had been there had told me how cool a city it was and I would love it. I don’t know if it is because we arrived through the grittiest part of town or if it’s because my expectations were so high but my first impressions of Frisco wasn’t on the awed part of the spectrum…I was disappointed.

Mel took us to the winding steps first. Apparently they are super famous as they are featured in many a movie. I oohed and aahed and pretended that I had heard of them but to tell you the truth, I don’t remember seeing them before…except maybe in one of The Hulk movies now that I think of it, but I am not entirely sure. I mean, some of my favourite car chases movies will have an SF scene..like Bullitt and I grew up on The Streets of San Francisco and Full House so I had maybe a little glamoured up image of the city… I wasn’t expected all the tweakers and homeless people wandering around in the streets…I also wasn’t expected it to be so cold after nearly cooking in San Diego and Vegas.

After the winding steps we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf for lunch. Now again, I was a little disappointed, it appeared to be quite small and tacky with numerous souvenirs shops but not much else. We had lunch in Mel’s favourite restaurant and I had my first clam chowder. Apparently it originated from Fisherman’s Wharf. I must make a small parenthesis again: I grew up in a village by the sea back in France and seafood is part of our regular diet…except that I don’t actually like fish and other seafood related meals. I mean I like mussels and I can eat fish and chips and grilled salmon, but you won’t catch me eating fish pies or fish based anything if I can avoid it. However I had decided that when travelling, you have to try local dishes as best as you can (I will draw the line at weird animal or insects type food) so I decided that I had to try the clam chowder. Luckily there was a set meal which had a small portion of it as a starter and then you had a sandwich for main (bravely I went for the prawn one too)…

This was my first pleasant surprise of SF. The chowder was deliciously creamy and didn’t taste too fishy. I really enjoyed it.

After lunch we didn’t much time to hang around for long as the place had been really busy and we had to wait for a while, our time was up quickly

The next step of our San Francisco adventure was to ride a cable car all the way to Union Square. Then we had a free afternoon shopping (not my favourite thing in the world to do, I’ll be honest).

Riding the cable car was fun…I wish I had had a place on the outside as you see more, but standing up inside was still better than sitting inside, so it was ok

Our driver…or operator, I am not sure what they are called.

I felt rubbish that day. I hadn’t put on my lenses because I thought we would have time to do that at the hotel before heading out…we didn’t stop at the hotel, we went straight out. Oh well, holidays are rarely the opportunity to be stylish…

An awesome percussionist. Apparently SF is full of people like him, unfortunately he is the only one we saw.

Although I wasn’t super impressed by Union Square, I mean it is another shopping area like many others in big cities…same shops and labels…I really liked SF’s trams and bus system. Each train is vintage style and in a different shape and colour. I would have liked to have the time to ride one to see if it was nice inside too.

The group of course split up quickly as we all had different things we wanted to do…well I didn’t have anything in mind so Steph, Achim and I went in search of a book store for Steph. The man hasn’t upgraded to a Kindle yet (despite my very convincing sales pitch – Amazon should really pay me for that as I have been singing the merits of Kindle ever since I bought one!) and he ploughs through books quicker than he can buy them…and curiously, there aren’t many book stores around in US, even in big cities. We found a badly stocked one in Westfield shopping center (another one) and there was nothing interesting for him. Achim had decided he wanted to buy an iPad so we dropped in the Apple Store…deal was done in 10 mins! I had planned on doing the same but I caved in and bought mine before leaving for the States. I know it would have been cheaper but I wanted to have it for the whole trip, not at the tail end. I don’t regret buying it before…

After that, Achim and I decided to go check out Chinatown. Steph wasn’t keen as for him Chinatown is the same everywhere you go so he decided to continue in his search for a book store (he never found one by the way).

We made our way up “the streets of San Francisco”…it’s a lot harder than it look, by the way.

Union Square (he)art

The Streets of San Francisco….

Chinatown

Union Square…more (he)art….

By day…

By night…

After that, we headed to the hotel to take showers and get ready for the main event of the day….my first baseball game!

Wall art in our room (I was sharing with Rachel most of the trip as she was the only other girl travelling on her own…all the other girls came in 2s). You could change the image by pulling the cord and I really liked the cleverness of it. Our hotel was called the Good Hotel and it was really quirky and modern…right in the middle of Mission area part which is full of druggies…We were told not to wander around alone at night….not what you want to hear from the city you have been dreaming of for years…

The temperature dropped dramatically too so it was chilly when we set out for the baseball stadium. It took us forever too as SF is as bad as Paris at 2am…there were no cabs around and with a group of 14 people, you needed a couple. We got the hotel to call for some with maximum seating and they kept sending us 4 seaters so it took a while…then trying to find each other was also not easy as Mel hadn’t been specific enough on where to meet. Basically there is more than one entrance to the stadium and somehow we didn’t all get dropped at the same! Duh.

Nonetheless, this was one of the highlights of my trip. We were told that a match can last up to 4 hours and there is a lot of starts and stops during the play so the plan was for us to stay a couple hours, eat hotdogs there and then head out to bars. Heather and Melissa decided to skip the game as they had already seen one during their eastern tour of US and didn’t enjoy it so much…

I LOVED IT! I didn’t find it boring at all even if a) I didn’t understand the rules – thanks Steph for trying to explain them to us ; and b) the local team, the Giants, lost badly to the Cincinnati Reds…poor them, better luck next time!

The stadium is amazing. Overlooking the bay, it’s a real treat. They, of course serve the usual junk food and you can get beers too, although don’t expect to get trashed there (which granted is now why you would go there) at $10 a beer ($5 for a coke!) it’s a bit steep…it doesn’t stop everyone mind you, as I saw a tweeny girl been taken out on a wheelchair, a sick bag attached to her face, completely passed out from alcohol overload. It wasn’t even 9pm! Shocking!

We stayed longer than planned as everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves but still we left before the end (like many others- supposedly fans -now for me that’s bad sportsmanship! You don’t leave because your team is losing -with no chances of coming back- you support it till the end!)

Our next stage was to catch up with Melissa and Heather -who had already been given the address of the bar we were heading out to- in what is supposed to be the party area (and which we discovered later was just for tourists -now granted, that’s what we were, but when you are on an organised tour, with someone who has been coming to San Francisco for years, you expect to be taken a little of the beaten track or at least somewhere that the local who hang out in)…Our first stop was a bar simply called 15 Romolo (which basically is it’s address). Now I don’t have any complaints about the place. It was nice, trendy and not too crowded. My complaint comes from the usual…I was just getting settled and into the groove when we “had” to move to the next one. Mel had told us about the oldest pub/bar in Frisco called The Saloon and it was meant to be our next stop. We got to the outside of it (short walk from Romolo) and my little gang looked at each other, not convinced. From the outside you could tell it was an old biker/rocker type bar. When I mean old, I mean the punters were middle age, paunchy looking blokes, probably wannabe bikers. The place looked tacky and they were asking for $5 cover charge…now $5 is not a lot but considering that we were probably only stay for just the one drink before moving on, we thought that it would make an expensive drink…so we passed. A few went in with Mel but Heather, Steph, Melissa, Achim, Lisa, Eleanor, Rachel, Simon and I decided to skip it. Melissa, Heather, Achim and I were not ready to go home yet though…the others grabbed a cab straight back to hotel but we went back to Romolo…we just couldn’t be bothered to look for another place.

We didn’t stay super long…just long enough enough for another couple drinks and I ended up chatting with 2 guys at the bar…the others were laughing at me when I got back. They thought it was typical that of all of us, I was the one who got to chat with locals (ish)…What can I say? I am a friendly person and I do tend to attract randoms…sometimes nice ones, sometimes a little weird but I do like pointless chatter…

I enjoyed that part of the night…there was no pressure, just a group of people enjoying a drink (without trying to get drunk) and talking crap…On the way back to the hotel is when we discovered that we had been in the wrong area to party…the cab driver told us that locals never go there…at the same time, I didn’t really bother researching the trip so if I had, maybe I would have had a better idea…or not.

I am not going to talk about the rideto Mariposa and our hostel in the middle nowhere. It was long, it was hot and we were really, really happy to arrive…

The hostel we were staying out is an eco friendly place in the middle of the wood, called the Yosemite Bug. They call themselves a rustic resort but it’s a hostel. We got dorms. http://www.yosemitebug.com/

The 2 good points about the place were a) it had a tiny spa and after a 9hrs drive, I was happy to pay $10 for the jacuzzi overlook the forest ; b) their restaurant: the menu wasn’t amazing but quality was good and portions were enormous. I went for the mexican salad in a taco bowl shaped shell for diner and I couldn’t finish it and their breakfast….the best pancake I had…actually they converted me to pancake for breakfast.

We had dinner and we stayed a little up chatting away and playing games…quite relaxing really…the cold and the mosquitos sent us to bed!

Day 9 – 28/06/12

Biggest blueberry pancake I have had…and it was soo good too!

It took 1 hour to drive to the actual Yosemite Park…we stop to take pictures of El Capitan, one of the famous rock climbing peaks…

El Capitan

and we had to wait forever inside before we could get started…Heather had forgotten her phone in her room at the Red Feather lodge in the Grand Canyon and they were mean to ship it out to Yosemite park. Turns out it’s a big park with a couple of postal codes…it tool an hour to track the parcel down.

We were due to do the Mist Trail but as we started an hour late, it put a little spanner in the works. Half the group stopped at the halfway point and turned back…My group (with Heather and Steph) was hardcore and we carried on. It was a really tough hike but beautiful and I am really proud of myself for doing it.

Yup we went all the way to the top of that!

The guys who made it! (left to right: Lawrence “The Finisher”, Stephan, Heather and me). Admittedly Lawrence got there at least half an hour before us but still…no one else did…and we waited for them whilst cooling our feet in the very cold stream…

Even Mr Piggy needed to get himself cool down…

Mr Piggy proving he also made it to the top!

After 30 mins up there we realise that no one was going to come…and wouldn’t you know, there was no water fountain there either. Luckily we met some really nice ladies police officers on a break, who had the kit to purify the stream water so she lend it to us to refill our bottles…I don’t understand what is the problem in those areas…saying I suppose getting plumbing set up there could be a be-atch but then, they could have someone to sell bottles or someone (like our guide) should tell you these things so you didn’t get caught up. Dehydration up there can’t be fun as of course, you still have to come down…It took us 2 and bit hours to get up there but luckily the trail loops around and we didn’t have to use the same route to go down…To be honest, considering how hard the last bit had been, I am not sure if I would have been able to do it back that way. We saw some people do it as we were crossing people going down as we were going up but they would done the easy trail going up so their legs weren’t spent yet.

We saw a guy that had fallen halfway through and it wasn’t pretty as it looked like he had tumbled whilst going down and not up…which over there is scary as hell as it is steep and only sharp rocks to break your fall. He was all battered and bloody and was being looked after the park rangers…

We were supposed to all meet back at 5pm near the park entrance gift shop but considering we wasted time waiting for the rest of the group and with time it took to get down, we were about 30 mins late (which all in all wasn’t too bad)…everybody else had returned by then…I was a bit disappointed that we had missed the opportunity to go swim in the lake as it had been so hot and it was supposed to be how we finished the day after the hike (the other group, the one that stopped halfway through, went to the lake to spend the time waiting for us)…turns out, they actually didn’t swim, barely dipped their feet in (like me up stream) as the water was way too cold…so I didn’t miss out on anything.

The day was not over yet…Mel had another vista to show us…back on the bus and 1 hour drive we were at Glacier Point. Nearly opposite from where we were…we could see the top of Mist Trail from across the valley.

Top of Mist trail seen with max zoom from Glacier Point…

Mr Piggy on top of the world….

The 2 hours drive back was pretty and we even got to see a wolf by the road side. I was on the wrong side of the van so I didn’t get to take a picture but I could see it. It was beautiful and so unconcerned by the vehicles that had stopped to watch it. We all tried to stare in the woods throughout the rest of the journey back to see if we could catch glimpses of bears but no luck…none came out for us. Then again, might not be such a bad thing as they are not particularly known for being friendly 🙂

Back at camp, we all had a quiet evening (not much else to do to be honest) at the lodge’s restaurant/bar. The spa was unfortunately closed by the time we had dinner so we just chilled talking crap and drinking cheap drinks.

We gave ourselves a lie in…I went for a morning swim and then the plan was to go to NY NY where there is a rollercoaster. I am personally not keen on rollercoaster and Steph and Melissa kept trying to convince me to go…I chickened out.

I wanted to go to a pool party and according to Mel’s list of things to do in Vegas, Wet Republic @ MGM was the best one, but unfortunately as we discovered speaking to ticket scouts on the Strip a) you have to book your ticket a little in advance (another one of those things you are not really told) and Wet Republic was closed that day….so no Pool party for us…saying that it was probably better as it probably would have packed with half naked people drinking and well I am not that comfortable hanging around in a bikini…

We had a quick breakfast there (I am ashamed to say that I followed the crowds and got a Starbuck’s breakfast instead of the NY Deli style one I wanted – the queue was too long there…)

I have to admit that they know how to amaze people in Vegas, the reproduction of Little Italy in NY NY or Venice in the Venetian (see later on) was incredible…well at least I imagine it was as I haven’t actually seen either in real life…but it looked the part…

We spent the day walking up and down The Strip, in the heat of the day…dipping in and out of the famous casinos to cool down…it was really baking!

Inside the Belagio…

Why lie indeed…I don’t know if it worked for him but it made me giggle…

Outside the Belagios….

Outside the Caesar Palace…

we went in of course and we even had lunch in one of the burger joints…A little overpriced, but expected from such a high rolling environment…

The only casino I really wanted to see…appealed to my inner child …

The Venetian…the casino that impressed me the most…it was magical.

A small optical illusion….

Venice…indoors…This is the only Venice I have seen so far

A little opera to sooth the mind…

That night we decided to go gambling a little. We went back to the Caesar Palace. I had decided not to play more than $20…after I lost $8 at the slot machine, I gave up. Heather was on a lucky streak…she won $40 and only played $5! Good return. Steph tried his hand at Black Jack but it was too complicated and the start bet was too high to really get anywhere with it…We got bored quite quickly of all that and went back for an early night… Our next journey was going to take 9 hours!!!

Getting into Vegas was like seeing part of my favourite TV show though (CSI).

And we are off again. To tell you the truth I can’t remember much about that ride.

Although I missed the shot, we also saw a “drive thru” wedding chapel! I mean how desperate are you that you can’t even get out of your car to get married???!

We got to our motel, the Best Western Mardis Gras (not sure what Mardis Gras has to do with Vegas, but who cares…). It’s nothing special, except it has a pool in the court yard and considering how sweltering the temperature was we all needed a swim…but not so fast for Melissa, Achim and me….we were in dire need of clothes/shoes as we had been told that we were going clubbing in fancy places that night and girls needed to dress up and guys no trainers allowed. Now why didn’t I think that we might need party clothes on this trip, I am not sure but I had the dress and the shoes in my hand, in my room…put them in the case and then decided…nah, won’t need that! Silly because now, we have to make a mad dash to one of the shopping centres of Vegas – Town Square…20 mins cab ride and we get to the shopping area…it’s huge and we have no idea where to go. Melissa and Achim latch out on the first shoe shop they see (I was the only one who needed a dress)…I was freaking out because all the shops I could see were Gucci, Versace etc…no way I was going in there! I decided to ask the shoe shop assistant and she directed me to…H&M! Yup went all the way to Vegas to shop at H&M! A bit sad really… I left the guys sorting out their shoes and made a dash for the shop to save time…we were on the clock as it was already 3pm and we also wanted a chance to go swim before heading out.

First round of the shop, I didn’t find anything suitable and was starting to panic…then bam! perfect little top with a pair of short leggings and for the fun I even got a pair shoes to go with! I had just paid when Melissa and Achim found me and he decided to buy a couple of shirts too. As we were coming out the shop thinking how we were going to get a cab back, when one pulled in front us to off load some passengers and he was more than happy not to leave empty.

When we got back to the motel, it was party round the pool…well not completely but music was blaring and the sun was shining…We had a few good giggle and added to the soundtrack of the holiday with Justin Bieber playing on a loop and One Direction becoming The Finisher’s tune…you had to be there.

Plan for the night festivities were dinner at a local Thai restaurant, with beer tower

and sharing all the food…we were at the end of the table so somehow, we didn’t get our money’s worth to tell you the truth (we had all put money in the kitty for that dinner and to pay for the limo…oh yes, we got ourself a limo!)…speaking of, the limo came to pick us up to take us up and down The Strip and around Vegas at night…we had all bought some alcohol from an off license beforehand so the party was on!

A party shot…

Caesar Palace fountain show…

We stopped there and got to see the whole 15 mins of it. It is done in time with a tune from the RatPack. I believe they change the tunes at every show, and I am ashamed to say that I can’t remember which one we had.

Paris by night…

New York by night…

Just to prove that I was there and to show off my outfit…no glitter but I felt cute in it 🙂 It is however annoying when people don’t know how to take picture…this one would have been better in portrait…would have cut out all the noise around…oh well.

I don’t have many pictures of that night, shamefully…not like Rachel who took about 200!! None of them deemed Facebook safe 🙂

After the limo tour, we went to the LAX night club where Melissa (the guide) had secured us some free entry…she had built it up to be this amazing place and it turned out to be pretty disappointing. It was small, girls were supposed to drink for free before midnight (anything we were told) but turned out it was only vodka based drinks, but not redbull…the bartenders were not nice and very slow so we only managed 2 drinks before midnight…there was no room to dance and shock of all shock, there is no smocking ban in the US so people were lighting up right, left and centre making it very unpleasant. We stayed there for a couple hours (if that). Long enough for a tall, black girl to offer Steph to teach him “how to dougie” which I found hilarious but he unfortunately declined. Now that would have been something to film!!

Some people decided to go home from there, others (us) went on to another club – XS @ Encore…unfortunately, as I was getting in the taxi, I jumped in a little too excitedly and hit my head on the door frame…it hurt really bad and made me moody…it was not help by the fact that I was just starting to enjoy myself at the first club and when we got to the new one, we lasted 30s on the dance floor because it was packed and they just stood in a corner near the bar…I wasn’t in a mood for more drinking so my happy mood just took a nose dive. At the first sign of someone wanting to go, I jumped in with and went to bed…some stayed and I had a night they don’t really remember 🙂 at least they had a good time…

The best part of that night was the cab ride between the 2 clubs. We got a really cookie dude who seemed to be high on something and just talked and talked randomly for the whole trip…

Little Miss Chymeera

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!"
(Author: Maxine)